*
Margo awakes to a rough texture, cold and sharp as daggers. The skin of her arms is exposed and numb. Her eyes crack to see a cloud of frozen air streaming from her nostrils and blades of grass individually frozen over peeking through a light dusting of snow.
It wasn’t a dream; she is still in that dark, cold place, crumpled in pain on the hard ground. When has St. Joseph ever been known to have such sudden-changing weather? In all of Margo’s life, she’s never seen it shift so drastically.
A moan escapes through clenched teeth, a plea for warmth.
The sky glares down upon her with angry clouds, threatening to release their violent weather again. Frost-coated trees line the clearing with icicles snarling down at her like pointed teeth.
The stabbing pain in her scalp suddenly returns. She finds the warm, sticky patch of matted hair which throbs beneath her quivering palm. Margo sits up, much slower this time, to look at her red, tacky hand and stares, once she sees it behind her, at the bloodstained patch of snow. Crimson upon white stretches on.
Lightly massaging her head around the severed spot, she finds the bleeding has greatly slowed. Once she makes it home, she will likely need stitches, but her mom won’t be pleased with a trip to the hospital in the middle of this storm.
Still a little dazed, her eyes sweep over her surroundings. The reality of the situation is sinking in and approaching fast. Her body creeps from the feeling of cold into a silent numbness. Blood pumping slower, muscles stiffening…
But she will not give into nature, no matter how strangely it decides to act. Suddenly, Margo is on her feet and determined to escape. She keeps her arms wrapped around each other trying to create as much friction as possible. Her purple hands contradict her white, splotchy knuckles.
A sudden chill runs up her spine that has nothing to do with the cold. So much has changed in this autumn forest. Sunlight no longer pours through the trees. A heavy fog lurks over the area making it nearly impossible to see more than a few yards ahead, and a light sleet streaks the air stinging her bare arms with each drop.
Branches bow, straining against icicles’ pull. She notices, then, a tiny hint of green hidden under the casing of ice. The leaves are still bright beneath, and she realizes the life of the woods hasn’t fully disappeared; the ice merely stifles it. The grass is still fully green under a thick layer of ice. Mushroom caps have frozen solid. Even the wildflowers hold their blooms perfectly. Yes, there is still much life to be found in this forest.
What caused such bizarre weather anyway? she wonders. It’s late September in the south; snow isn’t due till mid January if it is to even come at all.
The wind tears through the icy branches creating a dulcet sound like wind chimes. The sharp wind encourages her to get moving. She cannot be sure of which way is home, but her feet seem to lead her in a good enough direction. With every step there is a sound like the snapping of bones. The sleet, now accompanied with snow, beats across Margo’s face. She uses a frost bitten tree to brace herself on a slick patch of ice when — Snap!
A massive icicle, thick as Margo’s thigh, falls from the trees towering above. It stabs the earth not three feet from her.
Change of plans.
She backs into the middle of the clearing again, huddling next to one of the large rocks and trying to get in the direct center of the clearing. She scurries to the top of one of the stones, but it, too, is covered in ice. She slips back to the ground, slightly injuring herself again.
Now with a scraped knee and a bloody head, Margo looks quite disastrous. But her only worry is finding protection against the harsh winds, and since walking home is no longer an option, crouching between the stone parapets is the next best thing.
The wind is kept to a minimum, but there is no way to avoid the falling snow and ice. She digs her foot in the ground to soften the icy grass and sits on the cold, damp ground to wait out the storm.
Over the next half hour, Margo stays curled up in her soft patch of grass, checking her cell phone for service to no avail. For each gust of wind, she braces herself for the coming crash. She cringes at the sound of each fallen icicle.
While she isn’t worrying about life-threatening ice, she tries retracing her steps in her head. She remembers following that unusual, fiery bird that disappeared without her even realizing it. She chased it through the trees down a path she didn’t know. Deeper into unknown territory. Deeper….
And then she was here in this very clearing.
Something deep down tells her there is more to the story than she remembers. This place is off, other than just the weather.
“Y-yes!” she attempts to shout.
Her school bag is still draped over her shoulder. She yanks it open and searches through it frantically. She pulls out a textbooks and rips out its pages between tender fingers to use as kindling only to realize she doesn’t have a lighter. To be certain, she digs deeper, tossing everything out that is in her way, desperate for anything of use. Of course, she has no need to carry a lighter or match. The closest thing to an emergency item in her bag is a small flashlight on a key ring.
“Sh-shoot,” she stutters, throwing more things into the snow.
After a moment’s pout, she wrinkles her face up to fight back tears as she bends forward and puts her fingers in the icy snow to gather her things. With jittery hands, she buckles the flap of her bag in defeat and slings back it over her shoulders.
What if I’m so lost I can never find my way home?
She squeezes her eyes again. She barely kissed her mom goodbye that morning. Margo can’t bear the thought that their conversations that morning might be their last. She wonders if her mom has even realized she’s gone yet.
A pang of guilt hits her. She may assume Margo’s skipping out on her chores again. She drops her head to her knees, flushed with anger. If only she’d gone straight home she probably would have never followed that stupid bird and never have found….
Her head snaps up, eyes widened in realization. “The snow globe,” she whispers. And then she remembers everything. The globe. The allure it held. The pain. The coldness running through her body. The twisting and contorting of muscles. The wind. The bright light. The whispers blending into her screams. And of course, the changing of scenery as she fell upon this cold, hard earth.
Is it possible that I’m crazy…to think that I’m in a different place? Margo shivers and shakes harder, the panic taking over.
It isn’t logical. New places don’t just come about at the turn of a globe. But this certainly feels new. Not only must she have fallen into a different forest, but into a different season, as well. Maybe in this place, fall has long since passed and winter is at its peak. Maybe the globe sucked her through time and spit her out on a different part of the planet. But what if she’s not even on the same planet anymore?
Suddenly, the millions of questions halt, and her mind is silent, reeling her back to her first question: where is she?
The white fog against the snow makes it near impossible to see, especially crouched below the scattered boulders, but for some reason Margo concentrates harder than before as if trying to place something. Perhaps something has subliminally caught her eye….
Her heart skips a beat, picking up at double time.
Two luminous rounds of aquamarine float in the white fog, a pair of curious eyes. Their sharp, intense gaze sends needles up her spine. The figure stands on one of the overlooking stones, dangerously close to Margo’s safe place.
She scurries to her feet clumsily and stares back at the figure, her heart pounding out of her ears. Suddenly Margo feels more alone as she stands there. It is just her and this stranger in the thick white infinity.
Backing out of her stone protection, she doesn’t dare look away from her visitor. The eyes follow her every step, and for the first time she is oblivious to the sleet’s sting as it beats across her skin.
The faint edges of the lurking creature become clearer
as it steps lithely down from the boulder and prowls toward her, a thick body standing on four muscular legs as high as Margo’s chest. It moves in familiar, cunning patterns. The edge of a tail flicks outward, a feline’s sign of distrust. Nearly transparent in the whirl of snow, the pure white lioness watches Margo curiously. Her thick fur ripples in the wind as she skulks forward. The beautiful beast turns and encircles her, eyes twinkling through the flurries. She cracks her jaw to glare dagger-sharp teeth as long as Margo’s fingers. A purr-like snarl seeps through.
The cat drops her head to her front paws, her back curling identically to the Hederman’s barn cat. The pose snaps Margo out of it. This is no beauty. This is a hunter and, scrawny as she is, Margo her prey. A lump forms in her stomach as this sinks in.
The wind clatters the icy trees and whistles through Margo’s hair. Her hand twitches involuntarily at the open air, as if some form of salvation would magically appear. But it won’t. She is quite alone.
A second flick of the tail. The cat claws the ground with paws the size of mitts.
Without a plan, Margo does the only thing the prey of an animal can do. She uses her instincts. She runs — straight into the dangers of falling icicles. But she’d rather take a spear through the head than be eaten alive by a wild cat. Panting, blind against the snow, she knocks branches out of her way, giving the cat exactly what she wants: a head start in the game.
Thum-dum! Thum-dum!
The rhythmic thudding of feet catches up faster than she expected. She weaves between trees. If only the snow wasn’t falling so hard….
Not ten feet ahead, the outstretched body flies through the air landing with an ice-crunching crash. How the cat ended up in front of her, Margo is not sure. In two bounding strides, it is right on her, paw extended and swiping through the air.
A blaring sound escapes Margo’s throat. The impact against her cheek shoots bright lights across her vision and sends her flying into a tree. She quickly pulls her legs into a fetal position just before the second attack plummets from above. A dozen icicles shower down from the treetops like darts. Once the creaking of the straining tree above her quiets, she peeks through her arms hoping the icicles scared the cat away.
It hadn’t. The feline paces as curiously as ever, not the slightest bit baffled by the fallen spears.
A spasm throbs up Margo’s arm.
“Gah!”
Frostbite? She doesn’t know all of the symptoms but is sure muscle spasms are on the list. But how can this happen now? As she faces her death.
There is a new dullness in the cat’s eyes as if she’s grown bored of her prey. Fur stands on her arched back. In a deliberate crouch, she rocks back one last time before propelling herself forward. Her feet leave the ground as she sails through the air with claws out and paws spread. She pulls her lips back to expose her teeth for a fatal strike.
The liquid, tingling runs down Margo’s arm to the tip of her fingers. She shrieks, turning her head to shield it with her arm. The other flails out wildly behind her. A crushing weight hits her back arm, threatening to snap the bones. Margo is suddenly gripping something cold until her knuckles hurt. It is met with a hot liquid. The crashing boom followed by a whimper is the last sound of the attack.
Margo sits there trembling, not knowing what happened, why she isn’t dead. Slowly, she turns around and carefully pulls her protective arm away from her head. In her other hand is a long icicle, piercing through the cat’s chest. An icicle she knows for a fact she was not holding before.
She releases it, staggering away from the animal.
The cat slowly moves as if attempting to sit back up, but the burden overwhelms her and her body falls limp, crystal eyes glossy and empty. Her luscious white fur, which Margo now sees has faint gray stripes, ripples in the wind and is painted in red.
Margo falls to her knees, her hands shaking and unable to peel her eyes away from what she has done. The last bit of the weapon melts from the warm blood of the cat’s side. Without the intent of the hunt, she suddenly holds the innocence of any ordinary house cat with her silky black lips, pink tongue rough like sandpaper, even a collection of grey whiskers. How could she have seen her as a beast?
A hand involuntarily reaches for her nearby gut disappearing into a layer of fluff. Her fingers instantly thaw. There is no stopping it; Margo melts into the side of the cat’s body. It still holds much warmth. She pulls her arms into its side feeling the goose bumps disappear. The numbness soon follows.
What a strange place I’ve discovered, Margo thinks to herself. She knows she should be more concerned with nearly losing her life, but mountains of questions seem to fill her mind once again. She is desperate to unlock the mysteries of this icy forest and longs to discover its secrets and more of its fascinating creatures. Or maybe this is just hypothermia talking.
Her mind wanders through wintry woods in hopes of forgetting the beast whose life she’s taken. She closes her eyes and involuntarily snuggles closer to the cat.
Icy branches clatter above. She cracks her eyes open, unsure of how long she’s slept next to the animal, to find herself lying in the middle of the forest.
Limbs sore from sleeping stiffly for so long, she eases to her feet. The wind hits her cold, wet side. She was so warm a moment ago that she hadn’t realized her nap took place in a pool of the cat’s blood. She shivers in the breeze. Perhaps her indulgence caused more harm than good.
She decides that since she is somewhere between the clearing with the stones and the road, she would to take a risk and search for the road. The cold envelopes her as she leaves the cat alone in the woods. Her hair drips cold blood as she makes her way through the crystallized forest, leaving a speckled trail of red behind her.
Conflicting thoughts battle on within. One side believes this is all just a strange coincidence and that she’ll soon be home snuggled up on the couch with her mom and a cup of hot cocoa. The other part of her knows something greater had occurred.
The fight for the first option presses her to keep searching for the dirt road. There has to be a way back home. She’ll search through the night if she has to. No matter how thick the air is, or how chilling the winds. At least for the time being the winds have died, decreasing the chance of falling ice.
An upcoming tree is split in its center creating a distinguishable fork in its trunk that Margo is certain she’s seen before. On the way into the woods, she remembers taking a left so if this time she takes a right —
Her hand thrusts backward wrapping around the trunk of a tree as she nearly loses her balance. A wave of vertigo sweeps through her causing her to cling tighter to the limb. Margo teeters over the edge of a cliff that she is certain is nowhere near her home. The woods should continue on, not drop off into a rocky descent.
This confirms her greatest fear.
Hanging onto the tree for dear life, she uses her feet as leverage in order to pull herself back up. She scoots around until she is safely behind the trunk of tree.
The clean drop off is completely out of place. Her forest would never have ended so abruptly.
Margo gasps.
Light! Below a layer of fog sits rows of little structures that appear carved in ice. And within them is light. Puffing chimneys. Life. Warmth.
The streets of the little town are empty, but it is obvious people reside below. If only she can manage a way down to the warmth. But the only apparent way is to slide with the hopes of surviving. The sheer drop has to be at least thirty feet down.
Margo backs into a tree and slides to the ground with a painful crunch, and before she’s able to stop it, she is crying. Her willpower is gone. The severity of the cold takes over. Not to mention, the odds seem to be against her.
She lays on the hard grass with her eyes closed, losing feeling. Tears freeze halfway down her cheeks.
Margo has thought of herself as a brave girl having been through enough to call herself that. But now she is scared. Actually
scared. She lays flat and motionless. A drop of warm water hits her cheek.
Stop crying.
The droplets spread across her cheek to her neck, her arms, sprinkling lightly and warming her even more than the cat had.
An illusion, she tells herself. Rain doesn’t fall warm, especially when surrounded by ice. It isn’t real.
But then something else happens: her eyelids begin to glow red. She pops them open in confusion and a powerful ray cast above causes her to shield her eyes. The warmth is satisfying, but the magnitude slightly overwhelming.
She squints. The sky above the trees is clear. Not rain but showers of warm, melting ice beat down on her skin, confronting the goose bumps. Each drop sizzles away the cold.
The rest of the forest remains in darkness and frozen. The light is only cast upon her. She decides not to let it bother her — the fact that the light is only focused on her. After all, she deserves a moment to soak in every ounce of heat available and relax.